giovedì 19 febbraio 2015

SAILING FROM TRINIDAD & TOBAGO TO BONAIRE

Bloody
Hell!!!

We are
finally leaving Trinidad and everybody is feeling good.

I’m just
joking. Maybe a bit of emotions or the long waves from east, we are all smashed
by the sea sickness. The plan is try to
reach Testigo Island where we can spend a day. The boat run well and also if we
have always some little things to fix we are really enjoying the cruise.

Cookingwhile cruising on a catamaran is so much
comfortable than on a mono hull, but is still far from be easy. The very good
thing is that yesterday we went to shoppingon three different amazing place, made for the one that want to eat
first choice meal. And for who knows how
to cook it ;-)

The first
it’s a normal big shopping center in Port of Spain, where we could find nearly
everything like in Europe except the gourmet things. And the other two that you
can easily google it to find some real gourmet food:

BLOOMS :
sell every kind of high quality frozen meat and fish. Everythingis vacuum sealed and well maintained. They
have also a good choice of olive oil and sauces. I cannot recommend something
in particular because all the food we bought there was absolutely
excellent.The prices are quite high but
sincerely worth the quality.

PERPPERCORN:
this shop is into a shopping centerand
from the outside it looks like a chocolate shop, but it’s a real mini market
with every kind of deli from Italy, France and all over the world. Here you can
easily find Riso Arborio, Foie Gras, Champagne, Tahine, Pasta, Tea, Nutella
etc… Also here your wallet will be lighter after the cash out, but like the
other, we can say that everything was excellent .

This is the
first experience for me of cooking on board, and honestly I lie if I say that
I’m not a bit scare of what I’m going to do, however this challenge makes me
everyday always more committed to this job.

I always
wanted to be a chef, it was just hard to
accept it, but once I’ve done it, I felt like limitless, or better, borderless.

We arrived
at Testigos during the night and that was a lot more comfortable than we thought,
the big openbay between the two island
allowed the entry without any issue and the mooring was quite good. When we
woke up in the morningwe couldn’t wait
to jump into the trip’s first bath. Blue sky, green forest and turquoise sea,
nothing better than a day spent swimming, fishing and eating our own catch of
the day.

The
fantastic sunset under the note of Ravel’s Bolero was only the signature on a
perfect day. What was funny of this three island, was mainly the facts that all
the women are living on the big island with the school for the kids, and all
the mans are on the otherisland mainly
fishing lobster.

Lazy and
happy we pointed the boat on Isla Blanquilla at 3pm in the afternoon, planning
to be there before the dark the next day. I start also to understand how to
calculate and program a trip on a cruise, so much different than when we are on
a race and we are always sniffing for the best corner with the right wind. Here
the gigantic jennaker is always the protagonist and make us sure to have at
least our 8-9knots with comfort especially on the night cruise.

At 6am the
next day, with 15kts of wind, a 10kg tuna decided that our Rapala was his
choice and so I had the chance toexplore a bit of my knowledge in raw fish andtropical fruit. The smile on the face of the
guest it’s always the top for me.

After a
meeting with the Venezuelan coast guard concluded with two Coronas we finally
let down the anchor in front of one of the most typical pictures of the
Caribbean sea: white sand, blue water and one only palm standingon a perfect beach. That was enough to make
us happy and proud of our day.

Next step
is also our first real destination : Los Roques. This colorful and breathless
archipelago it’s an amazing place to visit, we snaked in from the south island and
anchor on a turquoise bay, full of corals, pelicans and mangroves. The beach in
front of us was also one of the main attraction for some fishermans or day trip
for tourist, so we thought to spend a few days surrounded by the most amazing
nature.

Days are
going fast and Captain Jack is not here for relax or joke to much, the aim is
to do the world tour in approximately three years, and the schedule of friends
that are joining us on board is already settled, so sometimes we feel like if
we were rushing a bit, however, every place is special and also if we stayed
for a couple of days, it’s always hard to leave it.

It was the
same for our next stop on Aves Islands, amazing view and hundreds of birds
right on top of a tiny little island that makes us feeling like lost on the
peaceful sea.

Our next
destination is going to be Bonaire, apparently the first place till know that
should be fully organize and has supermarket, restaurants and other tourists.
It seems funny to say but fe feel like to see some sort of life around us. We
entered the island from the South and we were a bit surprised to find a fully
filled coast line with salt and oil company. A big cruise ship was sitting on
what we could imagine it was the city center and not many other boat where on
our side in the marina where we anchored the cat. The island’s first impression
was no longer last after the first tour
along the beach. Everybody that love to dive should come on this side of the
world, and actually lots of people come here for these reasons. The colors of
the water is excellent andthe
visibility unbelievable. We can easily see something from the surface to twenty
meters on the bottom of the sea, corals and fishes are always ready to welcome
you on their world and for us it’s so much nice to snorkelon this paradise. On the opposite side we can
say that other than snorkel or diving there is not much else to do.

The island
is a Dutch colony, and the population is divided by the hollandaise and the
“carribegni”. The first are people very serious and tipically from north of
Europe. The other are more or less the opposite with a touch of afro American
style. So when you go around on this island, don’t be so confuse if crossing a
street you’ll see a car stopping twenty meters before to let you pass and the
next time you’ll try to cross, you’ll hear some high volume music coming from a
messy car that seems run into you.

We are
going to stay here for a week or so, waiting for Victoria e Roberto, a couple
of dentist from swiss that are coming on board to see if they like this boat
and eventually buy one. We don’t know much about them but from the mail they
send to Captain back and forward, they sounds very nice.

For the
moment we chill a bit on the sun of the Caribe and we enjoy the company of Luc
e Martin, other two big guy that are travelling since a few years with their
Amel Super MAramou 2000S.